Screening and stability analysis of reference genes in fasting caecotrophy model in rabbits

Background The selection and validation of stably expressed reference genes is key for accurately quantifying the mRNA abundance of genes under different treatments. In the rabbit model of fasting caecotrophy, reports about the selection of stable reference genes are not available. Methods and results This study aims to screen suitable reference genes in different tissues (including uterus, cecum, and liver) of rabbits between control and fasting caecotrophy groups. RT-qPCR was used to analyze the expression levels of eight commonly used reference genes (including GAPDH , 18S rRNA , B2M , CYP , HPRT1 , β-actin , H2afz , Ywhaz ), and RefFinder (including geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper) was used to analyze the expression stability of these reference genes. Our results showed that the most stable reference genes were different in different tissues and treatments. In the control and fasting caecotrophy groups, CYP , GAPDH and HPRT1 were proven to be the top stable reference genes in the uterus, cecum, and liver tissues, respectively. GAPDH and Ywhaz were proven to be the top two stable reference genes among uterus, cecum, and liver in both control and fasting caecotrophy groups. Conclusions Our results indicated that the combined analysis of three or more reference genes ( GAPDH , HPRT1 , and Ywhaz ) are recommended to be used for RT-qPCR normalization in the rabbit model of fasting caecotrophy, and that GAPDH is a better choice than the other reference genes for normalizing the relative expression of target genes in different tissues of fasting caecotrophy rabbits.